This past summer, Christine Holmgren and Brittany Norman attended my social media panel at Cosmoprof North America and approached me to tell me about a new cruelty-free, gluten-free, vegan makeup brand they were launching. It sounded interesting and soon enough they popped a sample in the mail of their initial product, Hydrating Foundation. It didn’t take long for me to fall in love, which says a lot considering I haven’t worn liquid foundation in forEVER.

Why? Well that’s the interesting part. In the fall/winter, my skin goes a little wack and will peel or have dry patches.  Wearing liquid foundation was like putting a magnifying glass on these problem areas and only made it more noticeable. So what makes GlamNatural’s Hydrating Foundation so different? It is shea butter based, therefore it’s actually moisturizing my face, not to mention its other skin conditioning ingredients like grape seed oil, sunflower oil and jojoba oil. I have combination skin and had been worried that the shea butter would be too much for my skin, but it is not at all.

Glamnatural’s Hydrating Foundation comes in a 30ml glass bottle with an airless pump. That means it contains no water and therefore, no preservatives. It also is only comprised of 6 BodySafe ingredients plus color. So no fillers and unnecessary add-ons. Due to the formulation and consistency of the shea butter in it, you apply this foundation slightly different than you would your typical liquid foundation. I think of it like La Mer where you can only pat the cream on to activate it. For the Hydrating Foundation, you have to either pump a pea sized amount onto the top of your hand and rub your index finger on it to “heat it up” or disperse a pea sized amount onto your index finger and then warm it up between your finger and your thumb. The bottom line is that you need to let your body heat warm it up a bit so that it glides on your skin smoothly. And a little goes a long way, as the saying goes. My face only needs about a pea and a half dollop of the foundation to give me the coverage I like. And what’s great is that I can ditch my daytime moisturizer since this foundation already contains one.

This is full coverage foundation that is buildable. I do use a concealer on the sides of my nose, under my eyes and on my lids still, but I know a concealer is in the pipeline for GlamNatural, so I look forward to using a concealer that will work great with my skin.

I can’t begin to tell you all of the compliments I have gotten on my skin since including it in my makeup regimen (I’m wearing Ivory 2 in the picture above.) Even my cousin ended up buying some and raved about it on GlamNatural’s Facebook fan page (and she has super fair skin, so I was thrilled it worked for her!)

GlamNatural’s Hydrating Foundation is available for $65 at www.glamnaturalmakeup.com. And in full disclosure, I work with this brand for their social media, but I wouldn’t have posted this review if I didn’t think it was absolutely amazing. If you’ve used their foundation or have questions, please leave a comment!